Social Media Tips for Non-Profits
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This document provides guidance on using social media for non-profits. It recommends focusing social media presence on platforms that suit the organization's goals and voice. Key advice includes adding value for followers, being responsive and authentic, building trust, and focusing on relationships rather than direct fundraising. Guidelines recommend posting regularly across platforms to maintain engagement. The document also stresses using social media to reach new audiences, engage supporters, raise awareness, and improve communication and visibility with limited resources.
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Social Media Tips for Non-Profits
- 1. By JONAH HOLLAND, PR & Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden On Twitter @lewisginter @Mox_eMediaGirl Jonahh@lewisginter.org
- 2. What platforms best suit the organization? How do you do much in little time? What voice/vibe/energy suits the non- profit you are branding?
- 3. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Add value Be responsive & authentic Build trust -- do what you say you’ll do Build relationships & community (online & in person) In general, avoid promoting your non-profit on your personal page
- 5. • Reach a new audience • Engage with donors & those you serve • Improve visibility, image, reach more people in • • • • • • less time Do more with limited resources Improve website traffic & engagement Improve communication, trust/credibility Encourage sharing (photos, video, links, stories) Build (a supportive) community Raise awareness
- 6. Take time to build relationships Reward your followers (with good, valuable content, and occasional perks or giveaways) Invest time in social media every day Are strategic & thoughtful
- 7. You must check in on social media at least every 24 hours, more is better Guidelines: *At least 3 Tweets a day *At least 1 Facebook post a day *At least 2 blog posts a week *Regular attention to any platform you are on *Responsive & active engagement with those who comment & interact on your page
- 8. Social Media is not a direct ask tool for fundraising
- 9. Set Guidelines (ie transparency) Identify social media team Go over policy with employees in person, answer questions. Provide written copy & have them sign when they read/accept it. Focus on what employees can do…… not what they can’t do. * email me if you’d like a copy of the Garden’s 1-page social media policy.
- 10. Blogs are alive! • Use Wordpress • Provide LIVE links in your blog • Reach out to the blogging community, encourage ambassadors for your brand • Provide valuable info • Tell the story of your http://www.shoutmeloud.com/5-reasons-why-readers-unsubscribe-from-blogs-rss-feed.html nonprofit
- 11. Never post on Facebook without a photo (this means for a video or blog post, you’ll include a photo & a link, or a still from the video) Space posts at least 4 hours apart, but post at least once per day Tag organizations & use hash tags Use @ & “reply” button to reply individually on comment thread Use a “Facebook Team” if you have multiple stories or departments Check your insights & adjust your strategy Preschedule posts when needed , send link for review
- 12. Creative, quirky, fun, timely
- 21. • Connect with like-minded organizations • Connect with individual reporters • Interact with other pages or accounts For Twitter: Use Tags to follow threads of interest: #RVA #VA #FXBG #NOVA #HRVA or Topics #Playoutdoors #Garden #ECE #Kids #Autism #RVAart Image: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/facebook-search-engine-rumor-against-google-details/
- 36. Hard & Soft Bounces. A hard bounce is a permanently undeliverable email—for example, one sent to an invalid email address or to an address that no longer exists. A soft bounce is an email that is only temporarily undeliverable—for example, to a recipient whose mailbox is full. Ideally, you should track both. Click-Throughs. This is the number of times any recipient clicks on any trackable link within the email. In general, expect to see CTRs between 1 percent and 10 percent. This one had a click through rate of 1.42%
Editor's Notes
- Intro ….talk about what I do at LGBG
- What Voice?? caring, serious, fun, playful? Lewis Ginter has been described as SUNNY. Instgram & Vine are a natural for LGBG because of the photographic beauty, but wouldn’t work as well for say Richmond Justice Initiative because using photos of victims of Human trafficking would be a bad fit. Think of the language of friendship, relationships. Do what comes naturally. Build trust, respond, care, engage, learn, remember, listen, be your authentic self. Drop the façade. No one wants to engage with a fake personality. Be quirky.
- I can get a better, faster response via Twitter or Facebook than I can on the phone or in person Why? Everyone’s watching Everyone’s listening But this also means that you are front line customer support & it is time-consuming
- Might be a good idea to write out specifically what goals you have an order them for priority – this can help you in preparation to build your strategy. Some questions to ask: Where does your target audience hang out? What kinds of engagement do they like? In many cases, the best kind of engagement can be sharing what’s going on in your world while it’s happening. (VIDEO, Photos, Stories) How can you network with others (individuals and organizations) who share your interests or a related cause How will you measure results?
- The answer is tricky. The better you are at social media, the more time it takes. Here are some guidelines for content production, but these don’t address the time it takes to seek out and build relationships & respond to people.
- This should go without saying…..but I have to say it.
- If your non-profit is already on social media – first ask do they have OBJECTIVES, A STRATEGY & a POLICY If not, help them create them. Address specifics--like negative comments on your Facebook page, and who can write your Facebook wall – Fans will step up for you. And defend you. Take conversations off line if there is a problem so you can offer better customer service. respond publicly immediately and professionally and THEN take it off line Embrace Criticism Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s intent is to use social media as a means for two-way communication to engage audiences and help reach organizational goals. The Garden plans to provide a sustained presence with social media and to be considered at the forefront of its use among non-profits in the Richmond, Va., region. The Garden’s focus will be on the effective use of social media with an emphasis on it as part of overall public relations strategy with measurable results. Those using social media on the Garden’s behalf will be identified by the Garden’s management. They will be trained and held to a high standard emphasizing personal responsibility, good judgment, productivity, and ethical and legal standards (ie – issues of copyright and confidentiality). At the same time, they will also adhere to the Garden’s philosophy of the use of social media that is authentic, builds a sense of community and brings value to all. As with all work activities, the use of social media should be relevant to the user’s job, should strive toward the goals of the department and the overall goals of the Garden and should fit in with the user’s time management plan for completing work responsibilities. Those using social media during work hours will limit activity to Garden-related communicationPosting the Garden’s Wall or TaggingLewis Ginter Botanical Garden reserves the right to remove any posts that are not closely aligned with the Garden’s mission or are in direct competition with the Garden. The PR & Marketing Department has the responsibility to make that determination. SponsorsRegarding sponsorship agreements, sponsors may send the Garden’s PR & Marketing Department items to be considered for the Garden’s social media communications. Again, the PR & Marketing Department reserves the right to decline to use items if they are not closely aligned with the Garden’s mission or are in direct competition to Garden activities. The Garden also reserves the right to consider the most appropriate platform/s (i.e. – Twitter may be more appropriate than Facebook.) The Garden may also suggest alternative strategies that may be more closely aligned with the Garden’s mission. While we prefer sponsors work through the Garden’s PR & Marketing Department, if sponsors do post to the Garden’s wall or tag the Garden, the Garden reserves the right to remove such posts, based on the criteria outlined above. Guiding Principles are compatible with the Garden’s core mission, vision, and values offer opportunities to educate the public are within the scope of what the Garden can do regarding time and resources are not in direct competition with Garden activities enable the Garden to maintain its independence and autonomy, remaining non-political.
- VERY Important for SEO – but it is overlooked by too many organizations who don’t understand the secondary value of raising you “AUTHORITY” on the internet. Conversational & like you are talking to a friend (compose as an email) Link should be “hidden” or hot, not the full URL Comments should be encouraged & responded to (ask open ended ?) Blog roll: very important Read & respond to others Greatly increase SEO in a way you can’t get anywhere else – especially if your blog is linked to often and well read. Tell your story Engage Personalize: use your own voice; byline; passion is you. Keep it fresh & up-to-date Cross promote & support others
- Watermarks & “postcards“ are a good way to brand your photos so when they do go viral they take you with them. Words/Text on photos also is a great tool. People are more likely to share something like this. In fact people are more likely to read and share shorter posts. Post like this can be duplicated on a blog. And an image can be pinned from a blog (but not Facebook) yet another reason to double post it. Best practices include signing posts when you have multiple voices posting (or voices other than PR/Marketing) Using bitly Links. All posts including a photo (including video– use a still from the video.
- This post had 40+ shares – but no watermark.
- 32 comments – high engagement…not viral – not shared, but good interaction & viewership
- Sharing to build the relationship with your Member/Visitor/Volunteer etc.
- Sharing a photo from another page – won’t get a good engagement, but sometimes you do it anyway.
- Hashtags, tagging, PICMonkey.com
- Twitter is MICRO blogging. It is answering the questions, WHAT are you DOING in 140 characters or less. Great to direct people to other links = like your blog where you can expand on ideas. You’ll want to host/attendTweet-ups or other social media events to build the relationships. The Best USE of Twitter, are real-time updates sharing what you are experiencing. If you’re following something like an issue, current event, conference Twitter can provide a venue to post updates/ you can follow the event/action in real time integrates well cell phones
- HootSuite is one tool that you can use to make Twitter make sense. Twitter Best Practices…. FOLLOW those in your region or state. Follow those tweeting about topics of interest or concern for your organization. Find similar organizations to yours and Troll through their followers and follow them. Use an auto reply program that welcomes them and thanks them for following (but doesn’t spam them) STATS are included! You can preschedule Tweets if needed (use sparingly).
- Multi-tasking. It’s not ideal, but for those short on time, Instagram can by synched with Tumblr, Flickr, twitter. …for 3 posts in one. Tip, don’t synch every photo.
- Instagram recently added video for 2x the FUN…and that brings to mind also…VINE if you haven’t seen it.
- A must for SEO. Claim your Goole Local page too. Integrate YouTube, Google searches etc.
- Awesome stats…especially driving directions from zip.
- Be sure to fill out text box (for SEO) – remember this is owned by Google! Be sure to use good hashtags & many of them.
- Not the right fit for every non-profit. But you can’t argue with 2.6 million followers. A useful tool for everything from staff profiles, to recipes, to wedding ideas, to a board for your np in the news. Very low time investment
- Claim your company, add in services, logo, info about organization. Encourage employees to use it. The Development Dept or top level staff should be using it to research, build relationships with potential donor or partnering businesses. Employees should be using the Groups to do research in their field and to position themselves as experts.
- Cross promote glossy print publications – and send the link out to folks who request “no paper” in their mailings, because they are eco-concious.
- Integrate all of your social media. On your blog, have a twitter feed & Flickr Feed. ON Book, have your blog feed. On YouTube, link to your web page. Link to all your social media on your email signature and in your news. And if you can, locate them all together on your webpage!
- http://snapwidget.com/ for Instagram Snap Widget tool if you want to create Instagram widgets from streams or hashtags.